The Player, page 19
What a day. She’d met with Cassandra’s friends, separately. Had lunched with two more potential clients. And then, with what little time there had been left during business hours, she’d haggled over silk and taffeta in the garment district. The marathon had ended on a dinner with Cass. With the reception only two days away, they’d talked about who was coming and decided which of the sketches should be displayed.
Now, it was close to ten o’clock at night.
Not that she would have known it without a watch. She couldn’t decide whether she thought it was actually four in the morning or high noon. Her internal engine was racing so out of control, she felt as if her body was two feet behind her brain.
What she needed was a bath. A long, hot bath.
She stuck her head out into the living room and eyed the open door to the bedroom Gray used. In his bath, she knew there was a Jacuzzi the size of a small pond.
For the past three days, she’d avoided his private space, but now she walked over to it. As soon as she stepped through the door, she didn’t know why she’d bothered to keep out of the room. There was nothing of him in it. No personal effects, no papers. Just some clothes in the closet.
Her feet stopped in front of the bed of their own accord and she stared at the precisely arranged pillows. The fancy satin duvet. The matching padded headboard.
She couldn’t imagine them ever getting back in the thing. Or any other bed.
Had they actually lain on it together in the first place?
Joy forced herself to go into the bathroom. The tub was located in a walled-off marble alcove, and as she measured its wide belly, she thought it could easily accommodate three people. Filling up the Jacuzzi was going to take some time so she cranked on the faucets and went back to her room where she changed and pulled on a robe.
Twenty minutes later she was in heaven. Settling into the water was like being hugged and her body sagged in the comfort. She reached out for a bath towel, folded it up into a thick square and put it behind her head as a cushion. Then she hit the jets.
That ruined the moment. The noise of rushing water and the currents against her skin were agitating. Silencing the Jacuzzi, she waited for the hot water to still and then closed her eyes.
* * *
GRAY STOOD OUTSIDE the door to the suite, frozen in place. He didn’t know what he was going to find when he went inside.
In his mind, he saw his teenage self hesitating at his mother’s bedroom. There was a piece of paper in his hand. On it, in big letters, was a message he’d written. His father had called and was coming home early. ETA was twenty minutes.
Through the closed door, he’d been able to hear the sound of a bed creaking softly.
That time, as with so many others, he’d knocked once and slipped the note inside. It was a code they’d developed and he hadn’t waited for a response. Watching the men leave, all red-faced and disheveled, had always disgusted him.
He’d tried so hard to keep his mother’s secrets, fearing that he would lose both his parents if he wasn’t careful enough. He’d been convinced if they ever split, his father would be lost to his books and his judicial bench, and his mother would go off with her lovers, and then Gray would be alone. Nightmares about being left behind in dark, public places where strangers were cruel had plagued him for years.
The dysfunction, the treachery, the lying had seemed a small price to pay to avoid making his disturbing dreams a reality.
And hadn’t all that training in deception been put to good use? His career in politics was based on everything he’d learned about hiding emotions, shading the truth, thinking ahead so you didn’t get caught with your ass in the breeze.
The suspicion had seemed so natural. Until he’d been with Joy.
Forcing himself to slide the pass card into the lock, he opened the door slowly. Silence. Only silence.
No foreplay giggles or eager sighs. No grunts of a man getting off.
He let out his breath and wondered if maybe Joy hadn’t come to town at all. He’d been unable to reach her at the suite, because she didn’t know how to get the messages off the phone, or she hadn’t wanted to return the ones he’d left.
Then again, it was only ten-thirty. She might still be out.
Unable to help himself, he went over to the second bedroom. There was a hair brush on the bureau. A scarf on the back of a chair. On top of the bed, there was a neatly folded skirt and a silk shirt.
Probably the clothes she’d worn during the day and had changed out of before going to dinner somewhere.
He walked to his own room, putting down his travel bag and peeling his suit jacket off. He let the thing fall to the bed and removed his tie and cuff links while kicking off his shoes. He wanted a shower. He wanted some food. He wanted a drink.
But he wanted Joy most of all.
God, he just wanted to go back to the moment when she’d held him against her body. When he’d babbled about disillusions and she hadn’t scorned him for not being the tough guy he should be.
He undid his belt and dropped his trousers. Took off his boxers and socks.
His body was tight from travel and stress and sexual deprivation. As he stretched his arms over head, his back cracked and his skin ached.
A shower. Start with the shower, he thought. And while you’re at it, try to ignore the fact that you’re waiting for Joy to burst into this suite with Charles Wilshire. Or some other man.
Gray pushed the door to the bathroom open and frowned. The overhead lights were on dimly. There was a bathrobe thrown casually across the sink. And the air was warm. Moist.
Moving slowly, breath caught in his throat, Gray peered around into the alcove.
Joy was asleep in the Jacuzzi, her long, lithe body stretched out in the water. Her neck was arched, her head back on a towel, her hair flowing in strawberry-blond waves across the creamy marble. The tips of her breasts were just breaching the top of the water level, and with every slow, even breath she took, the rosy peaks popped out and glistened in the dim light. As she exhaled, they sank beneath the surface.
He stepped forward, drawn by her.
At the same moment, her lashes fluttered open and her sleepy gaze slid over to him.
“Gray!” As if she forgot she was naked, she sat up, one of her legs bending to give her leverage. The sight of the water sluicing down her pale breasts jolted him, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Through the undulating surface of the bath, her core was revealed and hidden by turns.
And then her eyes latched on to his body.
Her lips parted as she watched his erection go rock-hard. He couldn’t be sure whether she was horrified at his undisciplined reaction or hungry for him.
Hell, maybe it was his size. He was a big man, big all over. Maybe she was surprised at what had fit inside of her.
He knew he should grab a towel and cover up. He knew he should make some casual comment to put her at ease. He knew he should leave.
He could do nothing of the sort. He barely had the will to stay standing.
“Joy…” he breathed.
It was a question. And as good as he could do considering he could hardly speak at all.
Her eyes widened, as if she knew what he was asking for.
Her answer was to reach out her hand to him.
He closed his eyes at her trust. He’d done so little to deserve it, in his actions and his words and the thoughts he’d kept to himself. How in the hell could he ever have thought she’d be banging some random guy in his suite?
God, the lessons he’d learned from his mother were too good. Too ingrained. If the past could make him doubt someone like Joy, he was too broken ever to be fixed.
When he looked at her again, she’d dropped her hand on the edge of the tub and was staring straight ahead. As if trying to figure out how she could get to her robe without going past him. The hurt on her face made him wince.
As he put one foot into the warm, soothing water, she glanced up in surprise.
Sinking down on to his knees, the size of him displaced gallons of water, kicking the stuff out over the gunnels of the tub and on to the floor. He didn’t even hear the splashing. He was reaching through the gentle water for her body, bringing her close against him, wrapping his arms around her.
She was so soft, flowing over his skin and his bones, until he was convinced it was her, and not the bath, that warmed him. He kissed the first part of her that hit his mouth. Her neck. And then he worked his way up to her earlobe, nipping gently at the tender skin.
“Joy…” Her name left him on a sigh. “How I’ve missed you.”
His hand swept down her spine and brought her lower body in full contact with him. His arousal folded up between their bellies, pushing against her soft skin. He was desperate. Insatiable. But very, very willing to wait.
As he rolled her over on top of him, the water rising up and soaking into his hair, he framed her face with his hands. He wrapped his legs around hers, holding her down against his body when she would have floated up.
“Slow,” he said, before he kissed her. “This time, it will be slow. This time, I’ll do right by you.”
He slipped his tongue into her mouth and was rewarded by a return caress that sent his senses reeling. She kissed him back with a hunger that nearly undid him, her hands grabbing onto his biceps and squeezing.
When he released her mouth, he loosened his hold on her legs and gently urged her up so she was straddling him. Her nipples were tight from passion and the chill of being free of the bath and he sat up, licking droplets of water from them. Taking one of the buds into his mouth, he stroked his tongue over the taut flesh and then flicked her quick once, twice, many times. As she gasped, he changed the loving, suckling her tenderly.
He pulled away, wanting to see her. Her head was tilted back, her hair trailing over her shoulders and down into the water. Her breasts were full, the nipple he’d had in his mouth reddened from his attentions. He went to work on the other one.
Her hands dove into his hair and he relished the way she was dragging him closer still to her breast. It was as if she couldn’t get him near enough and he knew exactly how she felt.
They stayed in the bath for a long time, kissing and touching, but there were things he wanted to do to her that the water made impossible. So in one giant, messy motion, he lifted her out of the tub and carried her from the alcove. He held her against him, kissing her, as he reached over and grabbed a towel. He started drying her at her neck and moved down to her shoulders. As he blotted her breasts, he kissed them both and then worked his way down her taut stomach and her graceful hip bones.
The juncture of her thighs enthralled him, but he dropped to his knees and dried her feet and then her ankles. Moving up her calves, he rubbed her gently with the soft towel and then kissed her skin. When he got up to her thighs, he slowed.
Her breath was ragged, her eyes shimmering with heat as she stared down at him. He kissed her outer thigh. And then licked a small, pale mole. He tested her flesh with his teeth ever so delicately.
And then he ran the towel up the inside of her legs. He didn’t want to rush her. In spite of the pounding lust in him, he waited to see if she would open herself to him.
Her weight shifted. Her thighs parted a little more.
* * *
JOY SWALLOWED THROUGH a dry throat.
Seeing Gray’s dark head at her thighs, his long, elegant fingers working a towel over her skin, was nearly all she could handle. But she wanted him to touch her even more intimately.
Especially as his tongue came out and he licked that mole again.
He shifted, his head coming higher and moving in between her legs. She widened her stance a little further.
His hair was soft on her inner thigh.
“I want to be in your heat,” he said against her skin. “Is that okay?”
“Oh, yes… .”
There was a low grumble of satisfaction and then his hand urged her legs apart a little more.
But it was his mouth that made contact where she ached, not his fingers.
“Gray!” Lightning ripped through her, snapping her spine into a straight line.
He nuzzled her, pleasured her, his lips and tongue hot and slow and delicious. She watched him when she could, amazed that this big, aroused man was on his knees before her, adoring her body as he was.
And adoring was the right word because his expression was one of pure bliss. As if he were getting as much out of the experience as she was.
When her knees gave out, he caught her easily.
“I’m not finished,” he said, carrying her to the bed. “Not by a long shot.”
He laid her down and went right back to where he had been. Her body was transformed by his loving, a bloom of heat starting where he was kissing her so thoroughly and spreading through every part of her.
And then without warning, he changed his tempo, speeding up, intensifying the caresses. She jerked under his mouth and thrashed her legs around until one flopped over his back. And then the world exploded and she called out his name, her breath stopping, her heart stopping, her thoughts stopping. She dissolved away, and when she condensed once more, he was lying beside her, nuzzling her neck, his tender words praising her.
Blindly, she turned onto her side and moved her body against his. His breath went in on a rasp when her stomach rubbed over his erection.
“I don’t want to stop,” she said. “I want more.”
He laughed, a deep, masculine purr. “And I’m happy to oblige.”
He rolled her onto her back and kissed her breasts, starting to move down her body again.
“No.” She stopped him. Pulled him back up. “I want you…inside.”
His eyes closed, his face tightening. “Joy, we don’t have to.”
“You’re so hard, I can feel the beat of your heart on my hip.”
Gray’s lips peeled off his teeth as if her words excited him to desperation. “I’ll be fine. Hell, I deserve this.”
“No, you don’t. Make love with me,” she whispered, stroking his back. “Make love with me until we don’t know which part of us is you and which is me.”
His eyes flipped open. He gently stroked her face. “Are you sure?”
She nodded, capturing his nape, urging his mouth down. He kissed her long and slow, and when he pulled back, she heard the sound of that drawer opening. Through heavy lids, she watched as he sheathed his length, wondering how he was going to fit inside of her, reminding herself that he had once before.
Parting her thighs with his knee, he settled his weight on top of her, propping his shoulders and chest up with his elbows. Stroking her hair back, he kissed her forehead, then her temple, then her cheek. Her body moved under him of its own accord, straining, trying to get close.
One of his hands disappeared between them. His weight shifted and she felt him positioning himself against her.
And then in a slow, sweet movement, he pressed inside, stretching her, filling her. There was no pain. Just an incredible rush of pleasure.
His head dropped down to her shoulder as his body started to tremble.
“Does it hurt?” he asked thickly.
She was so busy absorbing the sensation, she barely heard him.
“Joy? I need to know. Should I pull out?”
“Oh, God, no…don’t ever.”
He seemed to relax a little. And then he started to move.
Joy arched against him, grabbing onto his hips. He was a sensuous, heavy tide rolling on top of her, inside of her, the friction of his body creating a growing heat. She threw her knees out as wide as they could go so she could have even more of him.
“That’s right,” he said, his guttural voice almost foreign. “Sweet woman, you’re going to be the death of me.”
His rhythm grew more powerful, though she sensed he was still holding back by the sweat that broke out over his skin, by the tense muscles that were churning against her.
“More,” she demanded, nipping at his shoulder with her teeth. “Gray, give me more.”
“Wrap your legs around my hips.”
She did as he asked and gasped at the depths he hit as he surged forward, pulled away, came back. She sensed that there was something coming for her again, something he could share in if he let himself go, and urgency made her frantic.
“Don’t hold back,” she said, scoring his skin with her nails. “Come with me, Gray. Be free.”
With a throttled growl, he slipped the chain on his control and give her everything he had, pumping into her hard and deep until she cried out his name and went rigid under him. From a great distance, she heard a wild roar and realized dimly that the sound had come out of his throat, out of his chest, maybe out of his soul. His body convulsed into hers again and again.
And then there was only stillness and their panting breaths.
When he started to roll off her, she complained the only way she could—by holding onto him.
“We have to be safe,” he said with a voice gone straight to gravel. She felt his hand come between them and then he slid out of her body. “Even though I want to stay inside of you until I’m hard enough to do that again.”
He settled her into his arms. And then he kissed her lips.
“I’ve never been so…wild before,” he said softly. There was real wonder in his ragged voice. “Did I hurt you?”
She cozied up to his slick skin and his overheated muscles. “Not at all.”
He relaxed even more. “Sweet Joy, I never knew sex could be like that.”
She closed her eyes, giving herself up to the peace between them. Tomorrow, she’d think. Now, she just wanted to rest against him.
* * *
GRAY WOKE UP AROUND five to find himself lying on his side and wrapped around Joy. He had her head against his chest, one arm underneath her neck and the other around her waist. His thigh had worked its way between her legs. He’d even tucked his foot in so his sole was on the back of her calf.
